Nelson
Nobrega,
Portrait of the artist
as a Young Man
(Sao Paulo,1968)

Abdias
do Nascimento is Professor Emeritus of
the State University of New York at Buffalo,
where he in 1971 he founded the chair
in African Cultures in the New World,
Puerto Rican Studies Program, Department
of American Studies. He was Visiting Lecturer
at Yale University’s School of Drama (1969-70);
Visiting Fellow at the Center for Humanities,
Wesleyan University (1970-71); Visiting
Professor at the Department of African
Languages and Literatures, University
of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (1976-1977);
Visiting Professor at the African-American
Studies Department at Temple University
(1990-91). He holds honorary Ph.D.s from
the State University of Rio de Janeiro
and the Federal University of Bahia.

Born
in the town of Franca, State of São Paulo,
in March 1914, Nascimento is the grandson
of enslaved Africans. His father was a
cobbler and a musician; his mother made
and catered sweets and candies. He received
his B. A. in Economics from the University
of Rio de Janeiro in 1938, and post-graduate
degrees from the Higher Institute of Brazilian
Studies (1957) and the Oceanography Institute
(1961).

Nascimento
participated early in Brazil’s equivalent
of the civil rights movement, the Brazilian
Black Front (São Paulo, 1929-30). He led
the organization of the Afro-Campineiro
Congress, a meeting of Brazilian blacks
to protest discrimination in the city
of Campinas in 1938.

In
1944, he founded the Black Experimental
Theater (TEN), first Afro-Brazilian organization
to link the struggle for civil and human
rights with the recovery and valorization
of African cultural heritage. Denouncing
segregation in Brazilian theater, in particular
the practice of black-facing white actors
to play dramatic roles, the TEN offered
basic literacy, general culture and theater
courses for Afro-Brazilian domestic servants
and workers. Thus the TEN trained and
launched and opened the way for black
actors and actresses in Brazilian theater.
It also propitiated the creation of dramatic
literature focusing on African culture
and on the Afro-Brazilian life experience.

Aside
from its theater work, the TEN sponsored
seminal events such as the National Black
Convention, held in São Paulo and Rio
de Janeiro in 1945-46, which formulated
anti-discrimination and affirmative policy
measures and presented them to the Constituent
Assembly of 1946. The TEN also sponsored
the First Congress of Brazilian Blacks
(Rio de Janeiro, 1950).

Nascimento
was a key organizer of the Afro-Brazilian
Democratic Committee (1945-46) and edited
the newspaper Quilombo (1949-1951).

In
1968, he founded the Museum of Black Art
in Rio de Janeiro, which held its inaugural
exhibit at the Museum of Image and Sound.
Shortly thereafter, he left the country,
exiled from the military dictatorship
for 13 years (1968-1981). During this
period, Nascimento participated in countless
African world events sponsored by African-American
organizations in the United States. He
was active in international Pan-African
affairs, participating in the 6th Pan-African
Congress (Dar-es-Salaam, 1974), the Encounter
on African World Alternatives/ First Congress
of the African Writers’ Union (Dakar,
1976), and the First and Second Congresses
of Black Culture in the Americas (Cali,
Colombia, 1977 and Panama, 1980), and
was elected Vice-President and Coordinator
of the Third Congress of Black Culture
in the Americas.

Also
during this period, he developed his artwork
on Afro-Brazilian religious and cultural
themes, exhibiting widely in the United
States, in galleries, museums, and universities
such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, Yale
University, Howard University, the Museum
of the Afro-American Artists’ Association,
Ile-Ife Museum of Philadelphia, and many
others (see attached list of exhibitions).

On
return to Brazil in 1981, he founded the
Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute
(IPEAFRO), which sponsored the 3rd Congress
of Black Culture in the Americas (São
Paulo, 1982) and the National Seminar
on 100 Years of Namibia’s Struggle for
Independence (Rio de Janeiro, 1984), organized
by IPEAFRO in conjunction with SWAPO and
the United Nations. IPEAFRO also created
the teachers’ training and cultural extension
course Sankofa: Consciousness of African
Culture in Brazil, held at the Catholic
University of São Paulo in 1983-84 and
at the State University of Rio de Janeiro
from 1984 to 1995.

Co-founder
from exile of the Democratic Labor Party
(PDT), during the political liberalization
period (1981-85) he spearheaded the organization
of the Black Movement within the Party.

Candidate
in the first elections after the military
dictatorship, he took office in 1983 as
the first Afro-Brazilian Congressman to
defend his community's cause in the Brazilian
national legislature. In Parliament, he
introduced proposals for effective anti-discrimination
legislation and presented the first bills
of law proposing affirmative action. Serving
on the Foreign Relations Committee, he
led the Congress in articulating and proposing
anti-Apartheid measures, supporting ANC
in South Africa and the Namibian independence
movement led by SWAPO, and urging Brazil
to break diplomatic ties with the Apartheid
regime.

He
participated in regional and international
United Nations Conferences in support
of the Namibian People’s Struggle for
Independence (San Jose, Costa Rica, 1983;
New York, 1984).

Co-founder
in 1980 of the Memorial Zumbi, a national
organization bringing together Afro-Brazilian
civil and human rights groups from all
over the country, he served as its President
from 1989 to 1998.

In
1988, he gave the inaugural lecture in
the W.E.B. DuBois Annual Lecture Series
at the Pan-African Cultural Centre in
Accra. In 1989, he served as UNESCO consultant
for theater in Angola. He participated
in the International Directorate of FESPAC,
the Pan-African Festival of Culture, and
of the Gorée Memorial, both seated in
Dakar, Senegal. He was also on the international
founding board of the Institute of Black
Peoples, founded in 1987 in Burkina Faso
with support from UNESCO.

In
1991, he became the first Afro-Brazilian
Senator to dedicate his mandate to the
promotion of the African-Brazilian people,
and was appointed head of the newly created
Secretariat for the Defense and Promotion
of Afro-Brazilian Peoples, Government
of Rio de Janeiro State, in which he served
until 1994. In January 1999, after his
term of office in the Senate was completed,
he was appointed Rio de Janeiro State
Secretary for Human Rights and Citizenship
(1999-2000).

In
1995, he served as Patron of the Continental
Congress of Black People of the Americas,
held at the Latin American Parliament
in São Paulo, commemorating the Third
Centennial of Zumbi of Palmares on November
20.

From
1996 to 2001, he participated as co-author
and speaker in the Comparative Human Relations
Initiative (CHRI): Brazil, South Africa
and the United States, organized by the
Southern Education Foundation, a project
that involved organized civil society
in those countries in the articulation
of a series of meetings, publications
and events under the general title “Beyond
Racism.”

He
participated in the Brazilian national
organizational process of the 3rd
World Conference Against Racism and was
Keynote Speaker at the NGO Forum of that
Conference, held in Durban, South Africa,
September 2001.

He
has published many books, some in English,
and edited two journals, Afrodiaspora
(1983-86) and Thoth (1997-1999)
(see attached list of publications). His
play Sortilege (Black Mystery),
staged in Rio de Janeiro in 1957 after
several years’ repression by police censorship,
was also produced in English at the State
University of New York at Buffalo, in
1971, and at the Inner City Cultural Center
of Los Angeles in 1975. His volume of
poetry is entitled Asés of Blood and
Hope: Orikis.

Since
his return to Brazil from exile in 1981,
he has exhibited his artwork at the Ministry
of Culture’s Sergio Milliet Gallery (Rio
de Janeiro, 1982), the Ministry of Education
and Culture headquarters (Palácio Gsustavo
Capanema, Rio de Janeiro, 1988), the seat
of the National Congress (Brasíilia, 1997),
and the Debret Gallery in Paris (1998).